Juridification of examination systems: extending state level authority over teacher assessments through regrading of national tests

Since 2009, the Swedish Government uses an ‘audit’ agency – the Swedish Schools Inspectorate – to monitor and assess the accuracy with which teachers grade student responses on national tests. This study explores the introduction and subsequent establishment of the Inspectorate’s regrading programme as an example of political management of the tensions between competition and equity inherent in neoliberal regulatory regimes. The programme is considered a case for examining contemporary policies and discourses on fairness and government actions undertaken to resolve issues of unfair assessment and safeguard students’ rights. Work of Carol Bacchi forms part of the theoretical background for the investigation of problem representations around and within the programme. The article demonstrates how discursive practices in the fields of government, audit and media have worked to frame teachers’ assessments as incorrect, unfair and as jeopardizing the credibility of the grading system, thus justifying increased central control and authority over teacher assessments. As such, the regrading programme contributed to increased mistrust in teacher professionalism. A legal discourse is identified, and we argue the examination system is being juridified where the abundance of control over knowledge risks turning into a deficit of that same knowledge.     

Reconsidering school politics: educational controversies in Sweden

School politics in Sweden has recently moved in a conservative direction, emphasising the importance of conventional school subjects, stronger teacher authority and more discipline in the classroom. At the same time, consensus on the utility of such measures is lacking in the school debate. The conservative approach is often criticised as misleading and behind the times in relation to contemporary knowledge demands. This article examines and discusses the relevance of this critique. The main argument is that the conservative approach has a better matching with a previous phase in the history of Swedish school politics and that conventional schooling is difficult to combine with two of the major goals of schooling today – the diffusion of democracy and multipurpose skills. From this perspective, the political notion of schooling seems decoupled from the broader domain of public demands on education. To alleviate this problem school politics should draw less on the pedagogical ideas of essentialism and more on the historical legacy of progressivism in the Swedish education system.     

Classroom wall charts and Biblical history: a study of educational technology in elementary schools in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Sweden

This article considers the emergence of classroom wall charts as a teaching technology in Swedish elementary schools in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, using Biblical history teaching as an example. There has been some work done internationally on wall charts as an instructional technology, but few studies have looked at their use in Sweden. With a theoretical approach informed by Martin Lawn’s understanding of teaching technologies, this article shows that wall charts became both an important teaching object and a means of introducing new pedagogical ideas. A study of the official school inspectors’ reports shows that wall charts had spread to most local schools by the end of the nineteenth century, while an analysis of Biblical history textbooks and teaching guidelines shows that visual aids were increasingly integrated into the school curriculum. The wall charts themselves were initially imported, mainly from Germany, but by the end of the nineteenth century they were being produced in Sweden for the domestic market, in keeping with the National Romantic ideals of the day as well as with the new awareness of the importance of adapting images to use in classroom teaching.     

Curiosity killed by SATs: an investigation of mathematics lessons within an English primary school

By taking both pupils’ and teachers’ actions as the point of departure, this study aimed to understand governance within a primary school classroom. Video footage was recorded in an English primary school in which mathematics happened to be the focus. This data was analysed to identify the directions of both governance and self-governance and to help understand the consequences for pupil and teacher subjectivities. Our findings revealed the central role of national testing and inspection policy in constituting staff as ‘evidence hunters’ and pupils as ‘confessant and unafraid producers of evidence’. Both staff and pupils were complicit in creating sufficient space for everyone to fulfil their obligation to be accountable to the school’s senior leadership team (SLT), school inspectors and national attainment tests. As a consequence, mathematical knowing was simplified into a discipline of reproducing testable calculation, in which other possibilities of mathematical knowing were foreclosed.     

瑞典博士生培养模式及特点分析

对瑞典博士生培养模式及特点进行分析,认为从入学、中期的学习和科研能力培养到博士论文撰写、评审阶段,导师介入的力度大,学生自由发挥的空间大。首先导师负责严格控制入学生源质量,中期对学生指导力度大,对博士论文质量严格把关,导师的直接指导在学生的科研成果中占重要比重;学生在学习和科研阶段的科研和创新能力培养拥有很好的学术氛围和条件保障,并具有较多合作和交流机会;博士论文的撰写形式灵活,但评审严格,对答辩组织高度重视。这些培养模式及特点对于培养创新能力强、综合素质高的科研人才有着很好的保证作用,值得借鉴。     

学校治理现代化:意义探寻与实践推进

学校治理现代化是学校改革发展的一次深刻变革,要准确理解学校现代化的涵义,认识“治理”与“管理”的联系和区别尤为必要。与其他领域的治理相比,学校治理现代化有着综合性系统性强、公平公正要求高、治理成效显现慢、治理环节转化多等特点。学校治理现代化从不同角度分类,可以呈现出多种不同形态。新时代之所以大力推进学校治理现代化,是建设现代化强国的需要,是办人民满意教育的需要,是实现立德树人办学目标的需要,是探索形成学校治理“中国经验”的需要。要把学校治理现代化落到实处,需要把握治理领导权、治理体系现代化、治理能力现代化三个基本问题。     

Insights gained by schools and emotional consequences of school inspections. A review of evidence

This study systematically reviews research evidence regarding two questions: (1) to what extent do schools gain insight into the quality of their own functioning as a result of an inspection? and (2) what are the emotional consequences of inspections experienced by school staff?

It provides a review of empirical research studies published as full-length articles in scientific journals and proceedings of international conferences, symposia and workshops, as well as in books or as book chapters, from 1995 until 2012. Both quantitative and qualitative data are considered. The review process identified 35 relevant publications that met the criteria for inclusion.

The review leads to the conclusion that inspections fail to contribute significantly to schools’ self-understanding, but that they lead to a severe negative emotional impact on school staff. Furthermore it is concluded that the current evidence base shows several gaps, mainly related to underlying explanatory features that contribute to the occurrence of these effects.     

Slippage and/or symbolism: gender,policy and educational governance in Scotland and Sweden

This article provides an overview and analysis of the relationship between gender, educational policy, and governance in Scotland and Sweden and the two countries’ response to European Union and global legislative and policy change. In Scotland, gender is mainly invisible in recent policies on inclusion, achievement beyond academic attainment, and the idealisation of the child. Gender is thus marginalised within a range of factors contributing to social in/equality. In Sweden, in contrast, gender has higher visibility in policy and governance as both an indicator of democracy and a means of preserving social democratic consensus and prosperity. However, recently its privileged position has come under attack. We draw on social capital, gender, and policy theory to analyse the range of influences on gender and educational governance in the two countries including that of the social capital of organised feminism.     

无为而治：大学治理应有之准则

进入大众化阶段的我国高教,目前正处在一个问题诸多,饱受质疑的时期,这与政府主管部门的过度管理、大学内功利性管理等不当方式有很大关系,应借鉴“无为而治”的道家思想精髓进行大学治理。作为政府和社会,应积极履行宏观调控、社会管理和公共服务职能,简政放权,进一步扩大学校办学自主权。作为大学内部,应依据大学组织特性,建立健全现代大学制度,充分强化教师和基层办学单位在教学、科研等方面的主体性,构建大学自治、自主发展机制。     

The place of emotions while inspecting schools: reflections of two Ofsted inspectors

This article investigates the role of emotions of inspectors while inspecting schools as reported by inspectors themselves within an education context of increased accountability that arguably privileges rationality over emotions. The study is built on an emotion management framework that regards emotions not only as unavoidably natural and intimately linked to ‘rational’ judgements that people make, but also that such judgements are social constructions used to regulate expression of emotions. In-depth interview data of one retired and another, semi-retired Office for Standards in Education, inspectors were thematically analysed to assess the extent to which their emotions formed part of school inspections. In the absence of an officially sanctioned narrative of inspectors’ emotions during inspections, two kinds of self-prescribed emotions emerged as key findings: emotions for accountability, to which inspectors gave expression, and emotions for improvement, that they suppressed. For an inspection body that needs to ensure both accountability and improvement of schools to justify its viability, these research claims open up a new area of discussion that should lead to a review of inspection body’s stance on emotions and individual inspectors’ self-reflections on the moral as well as professional obligation to pursue both emotions for accountability and improvement.     

The effect of school inspections on school improvement

This study uses a school-level longitudinal control-group design to examine how teachers and principals of inspected versus uninspected schools perceive school improvement at their schools. During the phasing in of school inspections in the states of Berlin and Brandenburg (Germany), both inspected and uninspected schools were surveyed with respect to school improvement activities over a 1-year period. The main finding is that principals’ and teachers’ perceptions of school quality were highly stable, irrespective of the introduction of school inspections. The results show school inspections had a comparatively low impact on the aspects of school quality measured here.     

The complex task of leading educational change in schools

The leadership of educational change in schools is a complex task, particularly at a time when schools are being granted greater autonomy but are also under greater scrutiny through the publication of high stakes test results. This paper examines the complexity of the task of changing a school culture and the challenges faced by leaders engaged in this task. It is informed by case studies of two principals involved in a project designed to bring long-term change. The study provides insight into the qualities which make change leaders effective, and the different ways that leaders manage the task. The paper concludes with implications for the management and sustainability of change in schools.     

Northern Youth under the Siege of Educational Policy Change: Comparing youth's educational opinions in Finland,Sweden, Spain,Portugal and Australia

The question posed in this article is how differences between the five countries in the organisation of social policy and education are related to the educational opinions of the youth. In short, what we are dealing with here is how and to what extent social structures, ideologies and norms are transmitted to the level of attitudes. The theoretical framework used in the analysis is the welfare state typology by Esping-Andersen. Practically identical data sets were gathered approximately simultaneously in Australia, Finland, Portugal, Spain and Sweden, during January and February 2000. The youths were 15-16 years of age, in the last grade of obligatory education. For the piece of research introduced in this article, five variables and three background variables were chosen. The final pooled data file had 3008 cases (Finland 567, Sweden 413, Spain 788, Portugal 605 and Australia 635). Generally the educational opinions of the youth differed quite clearly along the lines of welfare state regime, although not in every case in the way expected. As the representative of the liberal welfare state mode, Australia clearly differed from the rest of the countries, especially concerning the competitiveness of pupils.     

Farewell to the tick box inspector? Ofsted and the changing regime of school inspection in England

Since its inception in 1992 Ofsted (The Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills) has inspected schools under Section 9 of the Education (Schools) Act 1992; Section 10 of the School Inspections Act 1996; and Section 5 of the Education Act 2005. Pressure on England to improve its system of education has not only emerged from the national need for all schools to serve their pupils well, but has also been prompted by an increasing emphasis on international league tables such as that produced by the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development). In tables such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), England is viewed as underperforming against comparable countries. As a result, Ofsted has introduced what the agency terms to be one of the most stringent and demanding inspection frameworks since its inception. This framework reduces the previous 29 inspection judgements to just four, purportedly placing a far greater emphasis on the professional judgement of the inspector and representing a major departure from the ‘tick box’ approach which characterised previous frameworks. This paper examines the paradoxical fate of inspector professional judgement and concludes that whilst this may appear to signal a rapprochement between inspectors and teaching profession, there are considerable tensions when professional judgement is considered alongside quality control within a highly complex system. The study concludes that in order that inspection attains credibility as a method by which to govern education, this shift requires a more considered approach to ways in which this professional judgement can be effective within the challenging environment of the English education system.     

The ecological footprint as an educational tool for sustainability: A case study analysis in an Israeli public high school

Education is widely acknowledged to be a means for advancing environmental sustainability. Many schools have recently introduced the idea of sustainability into their educational agenda and curriculum. This study uses an innovative method of communicating the principle of sustainability, the ‘Ecological Footprint’ Analysis, which illustrates the impact of community lifestyles upon the natural environment. This paper describes the process of integrating the concept of the ecological footprint at the high school level, analyzes the school's ecological footprint, and discusses its contributions to education for sustainability in schools.     

Popular educational innovations in the hierarchical world of Mexican policy

In marginal regions of Mexico, grass roots educational innovations have often provided what the official system has not: basic education that responds to the cultural particularities of such populations while satisfying the national curriculum's requirements. The way these have developed, the article argues, offers valuable lessons for a new devolved, more democratic and sustainable form of educational provision in which the school is the heart of the educational system.     

强化学校自我评价,提高督导效能——英国学校督导评价最新发展趋势

近年来,英国教育标准局为了提高督导效能,强化了学校自我评价,要求学校形成有效的自我评价机制,一方面作为外部督导评价的可靠依据,另一方面,作为学校实现自我改进、提升自我发展能力的重要机制。学校自评呈现出广泛参与、与学校发展计划紧密相联、将自评融入到学校日常管理中等特点,文章论述了英国教育标准局有关学校自评的内容和具体要求。     

The entrepreneurialisation of school work as a central theme in present educational changes: the Portuguese case

It is assumed in this paper that the main trend in global education policies is based on an entrepreneurial model intended to submit school work to the same logic that prevails in economic systems at large. Thus, I try to recognise such a model in current educational changes in Portugal. Two paths for the entrepreneurialisation of school work were identified, both of which have a strong influence in this country. As it is the rule in a global context, slogans such as ‘educational excellence’, ‘success for all’, ‘lifelong learning’ or ‘acquisition of essential skills’ are the cornerstones of the educational policies nowadays in Portugal. The continuous improvement of school productivity appears to be the main goal of the public education system in these policies.